Blue Papers aims to inspire new approaches to water, culture, heritage and sustainable development. We believe historical and historiographical analysis can help shift the discourse from strategies focused on short-term gains to long-term approaches that consider both historical dynamics and the potential consequences of future developments. An analytical focus on water – its materiality and flows – can help shift the discourse from disconnected, monodisciplinary approaches to spatial, social and cultural analysis, connecting multiple scales, diverse stakeholders and local characteristics over time. ... Read more

At a time of climate related water system change, the form and function of waterfronts is gaining more attention. The book Waterfront Regeneration in a Time of Climate Change: Recent Japanese and International Experiences, edited by Raffaele Pernice and Tetsuya Yaguchi, brings the case of waterfront regeneration in Japan into a broader global context. Building on an international symposium held at UNSW Sydney in 2022, the book engages a much-needed theme as it brings climate change and particularly water systems into the broader conversation on climate related water system change for coastal cities (SOS Waterfront). [...] ... Read more

This paper presents a critique of city-centric approaches in health and wellbeing planning and offers a conceptual and operational shift towards a territorially grounded paradigm. It argues that focusing on individual cities limits the systemic and relational understanding of health and wellbeing and undermines effective planning responses. We identify three flaws in city-centric planning: spatial-scalar mismatches that obscure where challenges unfold and interventions are needed; urban biases that sideline small, rural, and peripheral places; and functional fragmentation that reinforces siloed, sectoral approaches. In response, we propose what we call ‘Territories of Wellbeing’, a conceptualization that operates across interdependent regional systems. Using the Rhine watershed as a paradigmatic case, we demonstrate how this ‘natural planning region’ offers a productive arena for testing such a framework due to its polycentric structure through its shared river geography, long-standing transboundary governance institutions, and socio-ecological interdependencies. By considering the difficulties in moving beyond city-centric models and the challenges of the territorial approach, we explore and introduce three corrective pathways for planning, Comparability and Transferability, Contextual Sensitivity and Satisfier Differentiation, and Adaptability and Participation. These are practical orientations to make planning frameworks responsive to spatial diversity, dynamic interdependencies, and participatory governance across complex territories. ... Read more

Planning history as a field is connected to many academic disciplines as well as to multiple spatial practices. Historians, social scientists, planners, educators or designers engage with planning history from their respective perspectives. They study the role of planning in the development of cities and landscapes, they explore the role of policy making or laws on spatial development, they investigate the role of teaching for the discipline of planning and they use historical analysis for future development projects. All of these multiple ways of engaging with planning history exist side-by-side and each has its own reason of being. [...] ... Read more

War and military practices have shaped and reshaped cities and suburbia for millennia. Concentrated settlements hidden behind high walls were an important pattern of defence at a time before planes and aerial warfare. From the early twentieth century, decentralized settlements and urban deconcentration have provided better protection against military attacks. The Japanese military developed suburban settlements in the 1930s knowing the potential danger of wars fought in the dense cities mostly built out of wood. Modernist planners in post-war Germany proposed high-rise buildings in greenery, based on their experience of firestorms created by bombs and rubble that blocked streets. In the US, the defence industry was an integral part of the national suburbanization process. During WWII, the Mutual Ownership Defense Housing Division promoted the construction of suburban housing projects for defence workers and their families. Post-war suburbanization was fuelled by discharged veterans, while German-based US military housing settlements became a way to apply American ideals to the Cold War’s easternmost frontier. In Israel, American-style suburbs housing acting military officers formed a governmental tool to stimulate the development of peripheral towns and to facilitate territorial expansion. In conclusion, this chapter reflects on modern warfare in the design of contemporary cities. ... Read more

The much-needed repair and rebuilding of Amsterdam’s historical quay walls and bridges coincides with growing demand for innovation, ranging from improved logistics and energy systems to enhanced biodiversity and climate resilience. These technology-driven transformations are unfolding in the heart of a World Heritage property known for its distinctive architectural and urban character. This article explores the complexities of integrating heritage into transdisciplinary design processes, focusing on the Canal Ring Area inside the Singelgracht. It proposes three axes for planning interventions that draw meaningfully on the past while addressing future needs, including those related to climate change. In particular, the article considers how historical analysis, spatial mapping and narrative-based approaches can strengthen the integration of historic spaces and practices into locally grounded, sustainable, climate-responsive design. ... Read more

The existence of a long-term past impacts present and future design through the existence of built spaces and long-standing formal or informal institutions. The concept of path dependencies, developed in the political sciences as part of the concept of historical institutionalism (Sorensen 2015, 2017), highlights the role that decisions of the past have on decisions for the future. This impact is particularly significant when it relates to structures that require extensive investment and are designed to last for a long time. The concept of the Longue Durée, introduced by Fernand Braudel (Braudel, 1968), emphasises the relationship between natural conditions and human interaction, creating specific geographies. The concept supports an approach based on understanding earlier typologies and development patterns. It allows for contextualised understanding and avoids uninformed copying and pasting of designs from the past into current cities. It allows designers to identify critical junctures in previous decades and understand the underlying political, social, and cultural contexts of contemporary redevelopment. This influence across time is particularly strong when it has been solidified into concrete or built into extensive and expensive infrastructures, including for water management or ports. ... Read more

The confluence of sea and city has left its mark on urban design, art, and literature. When we talk about port cities, we usually imply urban units defined by a special physical, technical, and cultural relationship with the sea, made possible by port infrastructure. In fact, the functionality of port cities has changed over time, and they have, at various points, been considered safe havens and defence posts. [...] ... Read more

Blue Papers aims to inspire new approaches to water, culture, heritage and sustainable development. We believe historical and historiographical analysis can help shift the discourse from strategies focused on short-term gains to long-term approaches that consider both historical dynamics and the potential consequences of future developments. An analytical focus on water – its materiality and flows – can help shift the discourse from disconnected, monodisciplinary approaches to spatial, social and cultural analysis, connecting multiple scales, diverse stakeholders and local characteristics over time. ... Read more

Digital tools and related open datasets, particularly for geospatial analysis, provide an opportunity to connect planning history more closely to the methods of planning practice and heritage itself. While contemporary planners have adopted advanced, data-driven tools to model urban systems and environmental risks, planning historians have largely kept relying on traditional methods, such as static cartography and archival interpretation. This disconnect has contributed to a widening gap between planning practice and its historiography. Drawing on historical examples, such as Maurice Rotival’s pioneering use of computers in planning, and recent digital mapping initiatives, this paper argues for a more integrated, interdisciplinary approach to planning history. It examines how digital platforms, datasets and analytical tools can improve spatial and temporal analysis while maintaining critical historical inquiry. The paper discusses practices such as GIS-based analysis, digital inventories and dashboards, and reflects on institutional and methodological barriers to wider adoption. Engaging with the digital turn enables planning history to evolve beyond biographical and text-based traditions, offering richer insights into the urban past and informing more sustainable, just and historically grounded futures. ... Read more

The seemingly endless availability of energy of the twentieth century resulted in extensive sprawl, as people left cities for the suburbs and as companies expanded their production lines around the world. Since this time, shipping and other cheap forms of mobility have led to increasingly spread-out settlement and energy distribution patterns. The emergence of global petroleum networks between producers and consumers around the world has played a signicant role in the design and development of shipping, transportation, the urbanisation of the sea and in the construction of new land-side structures. Moreover, the use of petroleum as fuel for the military since the early twentieth century has helped drive the growth of maritime empires, such as Britain’s control of Iranian petroleum. For some years petroleum has oated on oil, allowing ports, cities and regions of the world to thrive on that very mixture. ... Read more

Well-being is closely related to questions of housing and planning. Improving liveability has been a key desire for the Japanese architect and planner Nishiyama Uzo, who influenced Japanese design over half a century. Through his writings and design proposals, he influenced a large number of Japanese planners. Starting from the 1930s, Nishiyama promoted an Architecture of Humanism that referenced international ideas including from Ebenezer Howard, Le Corbusier and Milyutin. He proposed new ideas for the organisation of the urban structure as the basis for living and offered concepts for the form of urban housing. Structuring cities in small units was important for him and aligned with traditional ways of organising the Japanese city. Such an approach was also fundamental for bottom-up community planning that emerged in the 1960s. Overall, Nishiyama's promotion of humanist ideas promoted well-being in line with the form and function of Japanese cities. ... Read more

Abstract: The dynamic interplay between global maritime flows and the spatial, economic, and social development of port‐city‐regions lies at the heart of this thematic issue. As globalisation accelerates, the relationships between ports, cities, and their surrounding regions become increasingly complex, requiring innovative conceptual frameworks, methodologies, and interdisciplinary collaborations to address both challenges and opportunities. Flows of goods and people shape infrastructural networks and create nodes of logistics and administration in and around nearby cities. They establish specific networks that primarily facilitate transport. Multiple approaches and definitions exist to describe and map these unique spaces. This thematic issue of Ocean and Society aims to advance our understanding of these phenomena by exploring a range of terminologies, typologies, spatial transformations, and examples of sustainable practices across diverse geographic contexts. ... Read more

Designing water systems – interconnected networks of water-related structures and practices – is not only a matter of technology and economics, but also of history, institutions and culture. Understanding these multiple, overlapping and interconnected spaces and practices requires a holistic approach that contextualizes current projects and helps identify challenges and opportunities. The article introduces a value case approach, including tools and methods that can be used to connect spatial, social and cultural conditions and their change over time. Such comprehensive understanding can potentially be used to facilitate societal change and guide political decision-making. The article first explores the rationale and setup of a value-case approach in the context of the PortCityFutures Center and the work of the UNESCO Chair Water, Ports and Historic Cities. It concludes by introducing key elements and methodological tools. ... Read more

Flows of petroleum have shaped buildings, cities and landscape around the world on sea and land. This paper shows how industrially drilled petroleum and its refined products have played a major role in transforming the built environment over the last century and a half, in ways that are often not visible or recognized. Understanding the multiple links between refineries, gas stations, headquarters or cities around the world, and acknowledging the path dependencies that these flows have created, provides a concrete example for extended urbanization and its role in fueling ways of life and visions of progress, modernity, and disaster. Through detailed international case studies the paper considers petroleum’s role in the development of the built environment and the imagination. It explores how petroleum and its infrastructure have served in shaping extended urbanization as a source of military conflict and political and economic power, inspiring efforts to create territories and reshape geographies and national boundaries. The paper explores ruptures and continuities between colonial and postcolonial frameworks through diverse case studies with diverse functions from around the world, including heritage sites. By revealing petroleum’s role in organizing and imagining space globally, this paper takes up a key task in imagining the possibilities of a post-oil future. It explores diverse contributions made by students in courses at Delft University of Technology to show visualize them. ... Read more

Ports are key nodes in the distribution of goods and people on a global scale. They link diverse territories and impact nearby cities and territories. Understanding the ways in which maritime flows shape territories on sea and land and using them to improve cities and landscapes in the short- and long-term is key to future sustainable development. Architects, planners and landscape designers can play a key role in this process; to do that, they first have to understand the role ports play in space, society and everyday life. Developing sustainable port city territories (Hein, 2023) requires keen awareness of intricate relationships regarding space and governance. In line with this premise, the Master Course Adaptive Strategies: Designing Scenarios for Port Cities, coordinated by Carola Hein and run by teachers Paolo De Martino and John Hanna at Delft University of Technology, focuses on educating architects, planners and landscape designers to understand the specific conditions of port city territories, including long-term developments and path dependencies. ... Read more